Anna was upstairs, standing before the looking-glass, and, with
Annushka’s assistance, pinning the last ribbon on her gown when she
heard carriage wheels crunching the gravel at the entrance.
“It’s too early for Betsy,” she thought, and glancing out of the window
she caught sight of the carriage and the black hat of Alexey
Alexandrovitch, and the ears that she knew so well sticking up each
side of it. “How unlucky! Can he be going to stay the night?” she
wondered, and the thought of all that might come of such a chance
struck her as so awful and terrible that, without dwelling on it for a
moment, she went down to meet him with a bright and radiant face; and
conscious of the presence of that spirit of falsehood and deceit in
herself that she had come to know of late, she abandoned herself to
that spirit and began talking, hardly knowing what she was saying.
“Ah, how nice of you!” she said, giving her husband her hand, and
greeting Sludin, who was like one of the family, with a smile. “You’re
staying the night, I hope?” was the first word the spirit of falsehood
prompted her to utter; “and now we’ll go together. Only it’s a pity
I’ve promised Betsy. She’s coming for me.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch knit his brows at Betsy’s name.
“Oh, I’m not going to separate the inseparables,” he said in his usual
bantering tone. “I’m going with Mihail Vassilievitch. I’m ordered
exercise by the doctors too. I’ll walk, and fancy myself at the springs
again.”
“There’s no hurry,” said Anna. “Would you like tea?”
She rang.
“Bring in tea, and tell Seryozha that Alexey Alexandrovitch is here.
Well, tell me, how have you been? Mihail Vassilievitch, you’ve not been
to see me before. Look how lovely it is out on the terrace,” she said,
turning first to one and then to the other.
She spoke very simply and naturally, but too much and too fast. She was
the more aware of this from noticing in the inquisitive look Mihail
Vassilievitch turned on her that he was, as it were, keeping watch on
her.
Mihail Vassilievitch promptly went out on the terrace.
She sat down beside her husband.
“You don’t look quite well,” she said.
“Yes,” he said; “the doctor’s been with me today and wasted an hour of
my time. I feel that someone of our friends must have sent him: my
health’s so precious, it seems.”
“No; what did he say?”
She questioned him about his health and what he had been doing, and
tried to persuade him to take a rest and come out to her.
All this she said brightly, rapidly, and with a peculiar brilliance in
her eyes. But Alexey Alexandrovitch did not now attach any special
significance to this tone of hers. He heard only her words and gave
them only the direct sense they bore. And he answered simply, though
jestingly. There was nothing remarkable in all this conversation, but
never after could Anna recall this brief scene without an agonizing
pang of shame.
Seryozha came in preceded by his governess. If Alexey Alexandrovitch
had allowed himself to observe he would have noticed the timid and
bewildered eyes with which Seryozha glanced first at his father and
then at his mother. But he would not see anything, and he did not see
it.
“Ah, the young man! He’s grown. Really, he’s getting quite a man. How
are you, young man?”
And he gave his hand to the scared child. Seryozha had been shy of his
father before, and now, ever since Alexey Alexandrovitch had taken to
calling him young man, and since that insoluble question had occurred
to him whether Vronsky were a friend or a foe, he avoided his father.
He looked round towards his mother as though seeking shelter. It was
only with his mother that he was at ease. Meanwhile, Alexey
Alexandrovitch was holding his son by the shoulder while he was
speaking to the governess, and Seryozha was so miserably uncomfortable
that Anna saw he was on the point of tears.
Anna, who had flushed a little the instant her son came in, noticing
that Seryozha was uncomfortable, got up hurriedly, took Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s hand from her son’s shoulder, and kissing the boy, led
him out onto the terrace, and quickly came back.
“It’s time to start, though,” said she, glancing at her watch. “How is
it Betsy doesn’t come?...”
“Yes,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, and getting up, he folded his hands
and cracked his fingers. “I’ve come to bring you some money, too, for
nightingales, we know, can’t live on fairy tales,” he said. “You want
it, I expect?”
“No, I don’t ... yes, I do,” she said, not looking at him, and
crimsoning to the roots of her hair. “But you’ll come back here after
the races, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes!” answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. “And here’s the glory of
Peterhof, Princess Tverskaya,” he added, looking out of the window at
the elegant English carriage with the tiny seats placed extremely high.
“What elegance! Charming! Well, let us be starting too, then.”
Princess Tverskaya did not get out of her carriage, but her groom, in
high boots, a cape, and black hat, darted out at the entrance.
“I’m going; good-bye!” said Anna, and kissing her son, she went up to
Alexey Alexandrovitch and held out her hand to him. “It was ever so
nice of you to come.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch kissed her hand.
“Well, _au revoir_, then! You’ll come back for some tea; that’s
delightful!” she said, and went out, gay and radiant. But as soon as
she no longer saw him, she was aware of the spot on her hand that his
lips had touched, and she shuddered with repulsion.